Thursday, January 24, 2013

Does Roger Cohen finally get it?

Roger Cohen (Photo: D Winter)

To this blog, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen is notorious for whitewashing Iranian antisemitism. But his plea to Hamas to abandon the 'blight of return' seems to infer that he recognises the antisemitism that drove Jews from the Arab world created an 'exchange of refugees'.

"Extremes feed on each other; a majority in
the middle is ready for a reasonable compromise that places the future
above the past.

That, in part, is what the two-year-old Arab Spring has been about: the
future over the past. However faltering (what revolutionary movement was
ever smooth?), the awakening has been about overcoming an Arab culture
of victimhood, conspiracy and paralysis in the name of agency,
engagement and debate. The dinosaurs of the Palestinian movement, like
Meshal, should take note.

Pursuit of all of the land, with its accompanying “right of return,” is a
form of perennial victimhood, one that has spawned some 4.7 million
Palestinian refugees, several times the number who were driven from
their homes in the war of 1948.

The right of return would be better
named the blight of return. It is a damaging illusion that distracts
from an achievable peace in the name of Palestinian children and
grandchildren nursed on hope. There is the possibility of compensation,
but there is in history no right of return. Ask the Greeks of Asia
Minor, the Turks of Greece, the Germans of Danzig and Breslau (today
Gdansk and Wroclaw) — and the Jews of the Arab world.

6 comments:

Davutoglu Says Turkey Hopeful For Palestinian Unity After Hamas-Fatah TalksForeign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said recent negotiations between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have boosted Turkey's hopes for a unity deal, for which he said Turkey is exerting its utmost efforts."We are hopeful on that issue."

and as to Roger Cohen - he may "suffer" from bursts of reality awareness - but since I recently listened to him on "Iran is a Paper Tiger" (an event of IQ2 from Feburary 2011) waxing lyrical on Tahrir Square I wouldn't bet one penny on it lasting.

This morning I saw that Necla Kelek, a German Turk, has a new book about her visit to Tunesia - the teaser said that in every mosque she went to Salafist preachers were at it. As I "know" Mr. Cohen I don't think he'd ever admit that, not even to himself.

Well, fine. So R. Cohen has called out HAMAS as a barrier, but Fatah isn't any friendlier. They are just more devious, right down to the resumed attempt to fix blame on Israel for Yasser Arafat's death as being caused by Polonium poisoning and not a stroke brought on by whatever underlying health conditions.

. I have bowed out of the local interfaith Holocaust service, because it was a custom to include Hatikvah at the end, but now some Christian groups object as they support the Palestinians and the Muslim Imams would either sit or leave during the Hatikvah. Perhaps interfaith Holocaust programs no longer make sense, at least to me. I do not need the stress of seeing disrespect being afforded to Israel and nor do I wish to compromise by leaving Hatikvah out. This is a personal choice and I DO NOT ADVOCATE ANYONE NOT PARTICIPATING IN ANY INTERFAITH HOLOCAUST SERVICE. I INTRODUCED INTERFAITH HOLOCAUST SERVICES IN 1974 AND WAS ONE OF THE FIRST IF NOT THE FIRST TO DO SO. This was a difficult decision for me based on personal principle. The interfaith Holocaust memorials started as well intentioned way for the Jewish people and other groups to pause and reflect on man's capacity to perpetuate unbelievable cruelty against his fellow and to commiserate as a group and others, with the Jews and hopefully prevent this nightmare from reoccurring. Over the years it was understandably modified to include other victims of genocidal mass killings, though these mass killings were not really analogous, as the Nazis were obsessed at not just killing Jews as a competing group, but Hitler desired to eliminate our creed and it's pervasive influence on humanity, particularly Christian doxy. As a result of Muslim participation and twisted liberalism, this is morphing into a twisted canard where Israel is being blamed for perpetuating ethnic killings against the Palestinians as the Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. One can understand the Islamo-Nazis belief system with a quote from the Talmud. We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG, CHILD OF Holocaust survivors and a refugee born in a D.P. camp.

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)